The Wizard Heir

“So we outsmart him. I'm not leaving,” Seph said.

“Hastings is going to be pissed.”

“Then let him.” The man finds out he's my father and begins ordering me around, Seph thought. He fingered the dyrne sefa around his neck. “We can at least get Hastings … get my father out, can't we?”

Jason shook his head. “If we try and bust him out, they'll know we're here for sure. If they start looking, they'll find us.”

Maddie removed the elastic from her hair, combed her hair with her hands, and reapplied it. “You mean to tell me you and Mr. Hastings showed up here without any kind of a plan?”

Jason stubbed his cigarette out on the wall of the cave and flicked the butt into a coffee can. “This is the plan, I'm sorry to say.” He turned to Seph. “Your father made a conscious decision to come after you. Knowing he was unlikely to make it out alive.”

Seph recalled Hastings's speech in the cellar. It definitely had elements of deathbed advice. “You mean he's just giving up?”

“I think he sees you as a kind of legacy. So even if he goes, well …” Jason cleared his throat and looked away. “You saw that thing they put around his neck. It's called a gefyllan de sefa, created during the wizard wars as a counter to High Magic.”

“What is it?” Seph asked. “Hastings said it drains magic.”

“It means heart killer—it disables a wizard's stone. Once it's on, only the wizard who placed it can take it off. It will kill a wizard in about five days.”

It does look like a castle, Linda thought, looking up at the building. The walk from the dock to the winery was lined with chrysanthemums and asters in containers. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to make the place attractive, even though it was the end of the season.

Just inside the front door was a massive foyer. A young wizard stationed at a desk had keys for everyone. He introduced himself as Martin Hall, explaining that he was the viniculturist for the winery. In fact, the place was full of polite young wizards: the small, nervous man who played the grand piano in the foyer, the one who showed her to her room. She had the feeling Seph would have recognized them all.

She asked Martin Hall if Dr. Leicester had arrived. After a moment of polite confusion, he said yes, indeed he had. So Leicester had been there for some time. That might mean Seph was somewhere on the property. If he was still alive.

But where was Hastings? She'd not heard a word since he'd left to meet Leicester.

“Could you tell Dr. Leicester I would like to meet with him this evening, before the conference begins?” She handed Martin a business card. “He'll know the name.”

Her room was furnished with antiques and reproductions, a four-poster bed with velvet curtains all around. The window overlooked the lake, although given the weather and the late hour, she couldn't see much. But when she opened the window, she could hear the sound of water breaking on the rocks somewhere far below.

She set up the laptop and spread the papers from her briefcase over the desk, including the two constitutions that had been put forward at the council meeting at the Legends: their own and the one introduced by Leicester and D'Orsay.

Her thoughts spiraled away from the task at hand. Leicester probably wouldn't make a deal. Why should he? He held all the cards.

There was a tap on the door. It was Martin Hall. “Dr. Leicester wonders if now would be a convenient time to meet.”

Well. Leicester was certainly eager. “Now is fine,” Linda said. She picked up her portfolio and followed Martin down the stairs and into the back hallway. They took a couple of turns and then Martin ushered her into a walnut-paneled library.

“Dr. Leicester will join you shortly.” Martin bowed himself out.

Linda looked around the room. Bookshelves lined the walls, and there was a desk with computer equipment to one side. Someone had built a fire in the stone fireplace, and expensive rugs lay scattered on the floors. The scene looked familiar.

She dug in the portfolio and pulled out the photographs of Seph that Leicester had sent to Hastings. Yes. They'd been taken here, in the library. So Seph had been here recently, perhaps just a day or two ago. She studied the pictures. He stood near the door, looking vulnerable and cold, his hair wet and plastered against his head.

“Welcome to Second Sister.” Linda jumped when she heard the voice behind her. She swung around to see Gregory Leicester framed in the doorway, wearing a sweater and jeans, deck shoes and no socks. He made no attempt to hide the fact that he was very much at home. Instinctively, she moved out toward the center of the room, where there was more room to maneuver, less chance of being trapped against the wall. He moved to the sideboard, chose a bottle, uncorked it with a practiced hand, and poured two glasses. He handed one to Linda.

“Try this. It's a Sauvignon Blanc. Something new for us.”

She sipped at it. “A little sweet for me.” This is your son's kidnapper, she thought. This is the torturer of children.

“I'll have Martin pour something drier tomorrow night,” Leicester said. He paused. “I was glad to hear you were corning.”

“I expect you would be, since you engineered it,” she said. She turned the wineglass in her hands. “Where is Seph?”

There was a flicker in the flat-gray eyes, but he said nothing, and waited for her to go on. It was meant to intimidate, but in fact it had the opposite effect. If she'd had a gun, she would have shot him. Instead, she drained her glass and set it down.

“You kidnapped him. You asked Hastings to meet you, said you wanted to make a deal. I want to know where he is.”

Another flicker in the eyes. Amusement. Anticipation. And suddenly she knew what he was about to say. She didn't want to hear it, couldn't look him in the face to hear it, so she turned away.

He stood just behind her, very close. She could feel his breath on her neck. “Joseph is dead,” he said softly. “Hastings killed him.”

She spun away from him, turned to face him again.

“You're a liar.”

“Not this time.” A pause. “Don't you want to know how he did it?”

“No.”

“He strangled him.”

An image arose of those strong hands around Seph's throat, knuckles white, squeezing.

“Where's Hastings? Let him tell me himself.”

Leicester looked steadily at her, saying nothing.

“Show me Seph's body,” she said. “Then I'll believe you.”

“It's in the lake.”

“Then we have nothing to talk about.” And she pushed past him into the hallway.

Back in her room, Linda threw herself onto her bed and lay on her back in the dark, staring up at the thicker darkness that was the canopy over her head. She felt hollow and cold, like a vessel that had been emptied too many times. She had been crying all week. And now, when the truth was worse than she had ever anticipated, her eyes were dry.

Could she believe Leicester when he said that Seph was dead at Hastings's hands? There was no question that Hastings was capable of killing. But could he take the life of his own son? Perhaps. To save him from Leicester.

She didn't want to think about the second possibility. The possibility that Hastings wanted to make sure that Linda didn't make a deal of her own.

Either way, Leicester was a fool. He had played right into Hastings's hands. He should have kept her guessing and hoping, right through the conference. Because now she had nothing left to lose.

Madison came up on her knees when Seph entered the cave, but slumped back against the wall when she saw who it was. “Oh, it's you. I didn't expect you back so soon.” Shivering, she wrapped her blanket more closely around her shoulders. It was cold in the cave, and she didn't have a jacket. “What did your father say?”

“I didn't see him.” He dropped onto the floor of the cave, sliding his hips backward until he was leaning against the wall opposite Madison. It was pouring down rain. He was soaked through, water draining off his hair and down his neck.

Jason emerged from the shadows at the back of the cave and handed Seph a towel. “What happened?”

“I couldn't get in. They've spun a web clear around the winery, enclosing the grounds. If we breach it, they'll know we're here.”

Jason swore softly. “If they find out we're here, there won't be a hole deep enough to hide in on this rock.”

Seph pushed wet hair out of his face. “But why would they put up a wall? Who are they keeping out, if they don't know we're here?”

“They must be trying to keep everybody in” Madison suggested, digging glumly through Jason's sparse food supplies.

“Meanwhile, we don't have a clue what's going on inside. And my father will be dead in four days.”

Jason sat down in the doorway to the cave and lit a cigarette. “Hastings thinks Leicester will wait and see what happens at the conference sessions tomorrow. They may first try to get their way through their usual tactics: bullying and subtle mind magic. The entire Wizard Council will be here, supposedly to make sure everything's on the up and up. So they may be in on the plot. Whatever it is.”

“Did you and Hastings have a plan for the conference?”

Jason gazed out at the lake. “My plan was to lurk in the conference hall. When the badness goes down, I'll distract everyone with a glamour and kill Leicester and D'Orsay.”

“That sounds more like suicide than a plan. You told me yourself there was no way to beat him as long as he's linked up with the alumni.”

“Well, it's the best I can do, all right?” Jason took a drag on the cigarette, released a stream of smoke. “I'll scare the hell out of them, anyway.”

Seph realized that, all along he'd been counting on Jason or Hastings to come up with a plan, a way out of this mess. Some way that he could help without assuming responsibility for its success or failure.